Chapter Forty-Two – Cosmic Exchange – Part Two

Fuck…

-Former UWO Staff Sergeant Milo-

"Come on," Barlow says, pushing my hospital bed, he grunts and groans, but it doesn't move.

"Brakes…"

He looks under and sees them. Within twenty seconds he's figured out how to unlock them and has me moving down the hallway. It's the first time I've been outside the room since they brought me here. My vision is still impaired, but if I squint hard enough I see more defined outlines. I'm just worried about squinting too hard, my eyes still hurt, it would suck if I accidentally popped them… can that even happen? I don't want to find out.

Between careful eye straining squints, I see we are in one of the civilian run hospitals off post. I did emergency room rotations here a year ago, so I'm somewhat familiar with the layout, but most of the hospital I didn't really get to see. Dorliac must have thought having me here was a better idea than the on post one. Thinking about her, I pull up my messages again, still no response from her.

There's a growing feeling of despair crawling its way up my gut right now. First Cortez, then Mwangi, Tran, and now… my eyes blink. A message from Cortez.

[ SPC Cortez: Pine ]

Pine? No, I think she meant pineapple. Our safe word. Shit, I send a reply, which is hard with Barlow carting me. If you lose focus even for a moment it pulls you back into the main messaging menu, lose focus again and it closes the interface. It took me quite a while to even get halfway decent at it. It's easier with your hands, you can kind of just… it doesn't matter. I manage to get a message off.

[ SPC Novak: Where are you? What's going on? ]

My head jostles as Barlow hits the edge of the elevator door.

"Shit," he says, looking behind us.

"Sir," someone says further down the hall, "Sir, I need to see some identification."

Hospitals generally don't look kindly on people moving rooms without staff, this one is no exception.

"His doctor asked me to take him to another room," Barlow lies, hand pressing the close door button.

"Do they have a name?" the voice asks, then quieter, I hear "Code Grey, third floor elevator."

"Maeve…" I manage to say.

"Doctor Maeve huh, okay, well, this is highly irregular so I'm just going to double check."

Shit. That Code Grey is going to lock down this floor.

The elevator door starts to close, but the person puts a foot out, stopping it.

"My supervisor is coming, you can explain to them," they say, "Let's just stay calm."

Not just her supervisor, but a plethora of hospital staff are inbound to our location. It's standard procedure when codes are called.

"I am calm," Barlow says with a sigh, trying to hit the button again, as though it will do something with their foot in the way.

The panel on the elevator turns red, someone's deactivated it from the security room. Barlow isn't dumb, even if he acts like it sometimes. He's actually really good at reading a room, better than Tran at least. He tries to push the bed out, but the person stopping us hits the braking mechanism with their foot.

"What's going on here?" a familiar voice asks, it's Doctor Maeve, Dorliac's friend.

"These guys say you gave permission for them to move rooms, Doctor."

"And if I did?" Maeve asks, I see her blurred outline folding her arms.

"Well… well, I'd say it's strange, considering we have Orderlies for that."

Maeve just stares at her, giving a look I can't see in the blurriness. Barlow takes advantage of the distraction and unlocks the brakes again, pushing me out into the hall once more. He curses under his breath and the bed stops moving.

I hear the familiar squeaking of comfy hospital staff shoes on the tile. There are at least five coming from each side of the hall. Reinforcements to help with the Code Grey she called. Fuck, this isn't going to end well.

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"Well, I never said I did tell them that," Maeve sighs, "I don't recognize either one of them."

"Then why did you…"

"Curiosity."

"Seriously?"

Barlow leans down to me and whispers, "Suits."

Shit, when I listen closely, I hear the difference in the shoes. I can't tell how many, but it's coming from both sides of the hall. Makes sense why Maeve changed her tune, she said she wouldn't help if suits were involved.

Barlow breathes deep, heaving me up from the bed, and slinging me over his shoulder.

"Barlow…" I grumble. This isn't the way to play this, but I can't string together words fast enough to explain to him.

"Sir, you need to put the patient down."

"Can't do that."

"Sir, you really need to put the patient down."

"Specialist Greggory Barlow, place Specialist Jimmy Novak on the ground and kneel, interlocking your fingers behind your head."

My head turns, I can't see them clearly but it looks like a man in a black suit is pointing a gun or a taser at Barlow.

The pit in my stomach becomes deeper as I realize the suits probably have everyone else, which makes sense as to why Cortez couldn't send a full message. They're probably in separate interrogation holding rooms. Specially designed ones at that.

"Well, I fucked this up," Barlow grumbles, then rolling his neck, "Time to double down… activate Skill Warrior's Blood."

The vein in his neck throbs, even blurred I can see it and the rest of his veins bulging. Warrior's Blood, the warrior class base skill, it gives them a surge of energy that makes Adrenaline look like a sugar rush. Only lasts five minutes though.

"Activate skill… Iron lung."

He's not playing around. He sucks the air in with his enhanced lungs. Unlike Iron Skin, it doesn't actually make your lungs harder, it just makes them stupidly efficient at chugging air. He bounces on his feet, jostling me back and forth on his shoulder like I'm a ragdoll.

Not having tendons connected in my arms and legs is really fucking frustrating. Fuck this. I need to open the Cosmic Exchange, if healing is in there. I'm getting it. I mentally try to tag the interface, but being moved back and forth is making it impossible.

"Barlow… stop…" I try to say more but my throat muscles are too tight. I don't want him getting in any more trouble.

"Gilroy said to keep you safe, that's what I'm going to do," Barlow says between breaths.

He moves with the grace of a cheetah that was raised by a one-legged Ox. Bursting down the halls and breaking things off the walls as he narrowly dodges people. He kicks open the door to a stairwell, breaking the locking mechanism, then slings himself and me over the rails onto the next floor's landing, skipping past another handful of people dressed in black suits.

"You're making this worse for yourself!" one of them yells.

They aren't wrong. I hear the crackle of electricity as they hit him with a taser, but he doesn't stop. He leaps to the next stairwell landing, pulling the metal prongs out as he goes. What's his plan though? There's nowhere to go. It's better to go peacefully in these situations. It's not like we can run forever anyways.

"Bro… stop…" I say.

"Nah, fuck that," he says, barreling through two that try to stop him, knocking them both to the ground, "I got this."

I think the warrior's blood is getting to his head. A common side effect. Making one feel invincible. It notoriously leads to poor decision-making.

"Trust… me… stop…"

"Relax, bro, I told you I…"

His body jerks as a handful of standard-issue hunter tranqs shoot into his legs. He shakes his head past the drugs slamming into his body. Oh fuck… he rages forward, dropping me in a heap on the ground, and tackling the guys who shot him. Dazed and confused. More darts, until he goes limp.

"Fucks sake," one of the seven blurs says.

"He a tank class?" another asks.

"Warrior."

I try to stand, but I'm like a worm on the ground, I can't move my arms or the lower parts of my legs, so I just kind of wiggle… it's probably embarrassing but whatever.

"Uh, tranq him I guess."

You guess? Fucks sake.

"Night, night, princess," one says. I'll remember that voice. Fucker.

Three sharp stabs later and everything goes dark.

***

My ears are ringing, people are talking, but it's muffled. It feels like I'm on a cold metal surface that's banging around… I think I'm in a van going down a highway or something. My head's fuzzy, and I'm blindfolded, not that it really matters. I think the drugs must have worn off faster than they anticipated. I hear Barlow's familiar snoring next to me.

"These were the last two right?" a voice asks, the princess one.

"No, I think HQ said there was one or two more." another voice says.

"Who else are they supposed to grab?" a third voice asks.

"Uh, Sergeant James Gilroy," a fourth voice answers, then after a moment, "Oh, and a Lieutenant Heather Tenny. Her picture's kind of cute."

"Solid seven, maybe an eight if she let her hair down."

They're picking up Tenny too? This might not be about my secret or Abyss, then… the WHA members that died?

"Weird day, grabbing so many."

"Yeah, but it's above our paygrade to ask questions," princess voice says.

"Still, what do you think they did?"

Yet another voice chimes in, "Pretty sure they got named in the slaying of two WHA members."

"Yeah, but that shouldn't warrant this kind of response, full black site detail is a bit much for a couple of WHA murders, don't you think?" princess asks, despite saying they shouldn't ask questions, then yawning, "I thought this would be about the divine item."

"No, I heard they already found it. All the interviews are just a formality at this point, to maintain plausible deniability."

They found it? The fuck? I mean I know they didn't, I can feel Abyss on my hand, but why do they think they did?

"Uh, no, I doubt they found it."

"Well, whatever."

"Back to my question," princess says, "Why so much effort for some WHA members?"

"You really didn't hear?" another asks.

"Hear what?"

"The mage they murdered, he's the nephew of one of the WHA Chairman."

"Oh, shit, yeah, makes sense then," princess says.

"Oh shit is right," another chuckles.

I fight the urge to sigh… it's always fucking something though. A chairman's nephew, of course he was. No wonder he thought he was above helping us. They are going to railroad the fuck out of all of us until I eventually spit it up, or they get someone who can see memories or something. Then they'll see Abyss, Niva the Fox, and probably Respec on Death… oh shit. I might be fucked… no, I'm definitely fucked.

This might be my only chance before they put me in a special holding room. I slide through the system interface, and slowly but surely I manage to make it, only kicked out three times by the loud annoying fucking laugh of princess fuckface.

[ Notice: Sufficient Neutral Echoes to enter the Cosmic Exchange. ]

[ Enter? ]

[ Yes / No ]

I hit the yes.

[ Entering the Cosmic Exchange ]

Time freezes in place. All sound is swallowed by the stillness of it. Then I see it… light, bright light. My mind feels like it's being dragged forcefully out of my body toward the light until…

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